Page 27 of Sal Gabrini: Man on Fire

“Right.”

“But not on me?” Gemma asked.

Marie hesitated. “Right,” she said.

Then Gemma exhaled. “Okay.”

“Ma, I know you don’t want to hear this. And trust me, I don’t I wanna have to say it. But you don’t think Daddy’s . . .”

Gemma waited. “I don’t think Daddy’s what?”

Marie exhaled again. “He’s acting like a man who might be tipping around. And with the guys I’ve dated, I should know what that looks like. You don’t think Daddy’s got a woman on the side, do you?”

“Of course I don’t think that! Why would you ask me a question like that, Marie?”

There was a long pause. “I saw him.”

Gemma’s heart began to sank. “You saw him what?”

“I saw him at a restaurant. With this woman. Very nice-looking woman.”

“What were they doing?”

“Just eating and talking. I’m not saying he was doing anything weird but. . . There was a fondness there.”

Gemma’s heart dropped. “Do you know the woman?”

“Nope.”

Gemma nodded and leaned her head back. “Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

“It’ll work out, Ma. It always does.”

“Yep.”

“Okay, Ma. Bye.”

Gemma ended the call. She tried Sal’s cell phone again. It went to voice mail again.

And then tears began to fall. She’d been going back and forth to California ever since she took on Mason’s case, with Sal right by her side, but over the last week she’d been staying in Cali the entire time. And in the last week, Sal hadn’t bothered to phone her once. Not one time. And he’d been staying out all night for the past week? And he had time to wine and dine some other woman? She knew he was checking on her through those bodyguards that followed her wherever she went, but they weren’t her man. Sal was. And he was behaving as if he was still pissed about their blowup at her office. Or the fact that she called him needy.

Gemma wiped her tears away. Now she was getting pissed.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The next day, that afternoon, was trial day. And it had already been a long day for Gemma. She had spent that early morning getting her own investigators to check out their “star” witness. To her delight, it was so far so good. It was all checking out. But she still hadn’t been able to reach Sal, and she didn’t like the fact that Lucky hadn’t told her what was going on. Gemma and Lucky were close. He told her everything. But he never mentioned to her that his father had been MIA all week. But Sal was calling Marie to check on her and Lucky. At least that. He just didn’t seem all that interested in checking, himself, on Gemma.

And that woman Marie saw him with. Who was that? She didn’t believe for a second Sal was cheating on her. At least, she refused to let herself believe it. But he was having dinner with a woman yet he couldn’t pick up the phone and give her a call? That just didn’t sound like Sal.

That was why, even as she sat at the Defense table next to Mason waiting for the judge to enter the courtroom, she was still texting Sal. But it was all one-sided. Sal wasn’t returning any of her texts either. Until she texted the wordswho was that woman?

Sal was seated in an SUV in the back of a Walmart parking lot waiting for Delarosa to show up. They had a truce, but it was a fragile truce as yet another one of Sal’s shipments had gone missing and yet another one of Sal’s capos was discovered feeding intel to Dela.

Dela’s SUV drove up just as Sal got that text from Gemma. He wanted to text her back and askwhat woman, but he didn’t bother. He had spies all over the place, and some of them were women giving him status reports. Some he wined and dined. It went with the territory. What pissed him off was Gemma questioning him when she flipped-out every time he questioned her about a guy even Stevie Wonder could see was slick as oil. They had a big blow up about it just last week, and she was firm about her commitment to Mason. To Mason! That did something to Sal when she voiced her commitment to that weasel. And now she wanted to question him? She could kiss his ass questioning him!

He pressed down the window of his SUV. Delarosa already had his window down.

“I don’t know any more than you, Sal Luca,” Delarosa said. “We’re in the same boat.”

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